Notebook text editing applications are popular in classroom and business meeting settings because a user can quickly enter information without being confined to strict formatting rules common to formal word processing applications. While taking class notes or business meeting minutes, the user may need to enter a table into the document. However, the table cannot be quickly established within the document without further formatting input from the user. For example, the user may be prompted to enter parameters for shading, three dimensional effects, vertical cell alignment, and merged cells within the body of the table. The time expended to format the table may cause the user to be distracted from the speaker such that important information is not recorded.